


This Year, That’s Enough

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Bodyguard (TV 2018)
Genre: Baking, Cheftide, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Feels, Holidays, family traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27876633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Vicky and the kids have a holiday tradition, and David joins in for the first time.
Relationships: David Budd/Vicky Budd
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	This Year, That’s Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emilia_kaisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilia_kaisa/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta!

“You made it!” Vick said as she opened the door.

He ignored the surprise in her tone; he’d given her enough reasons for that over the years of their marriage. Even though he had been doing better since the… well, everything, she wouldn’t trust him any time soon.

“I did.” Things were getting better though; he’d spent a few nights at home on the couch each of the last few weeks, although he was keeping his flat for now. As far as he knew the boyfriend was also out of the picture.

“You’re just in time. I’ll let the kids know.” She let him in and closed the door behind him. “Kids, Daddy’s here!” she called.

“Daddy!” Ella yelled cheerfully from the kitchen, Charlie a beat behind her.

David quickly slipped out of his jacket and hung it by the door before heading into the kitchen to greet his kids. Ella immediately ran over to give him a very flour-y hug. Charlie had been up on a stool doing something at the counter, and was slightly slower with his own flour-coated hug.

It was a tradition; something Vicky had always done with her mum. They even had special holiday aprons kept in the back of the drawer for just this time every year. He vaguely recalled hearing that whenever Ella went over to see her grandmum, she used the same one Vick had used as a kid. As soon as they found out Vick was pregnant each time, she and her mum had gone out and bought a special apron.

David had never understood the appeal, but it was clearly a _thing_ that girls did with their mothers. Even Charlie got an apron, but David hadn’t been around for that one. He’d been shipped out right after Charlie was conceived.

David had been on the periphery of this tradition once, his first year back. He’d sat on the couch, still swathed in bandages and pumped full of painkillers. Dimly he was conscious of Christmas carols, laughter, the assorted noises of cooking and cleaning, but none of it really coalesced into a firm memory.

The next year he’d stuck around for a bare ten minutes before someone dropped a pot and he flashed back to bullets clanging off metal, smoke in the air. He bolted out of the house, gasping for the cold December air that was so far removed from his memories. He made a point of being on duty every year thereafter.

But, after a few weeks of seeing the counselor in occupational health, David was ready to brave the kitchen madness this year.

“So, what’re we doing?” he asked as Charlie wiggled down out of his arms and raced back to the counter.

“Well first of all, though he's running a little late, Daddy has to get dressed,” Vick declared from behind him.

David quickly looked down at his flour-besmirched jumper. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re missing a very important item!” Vick couldn’t hide her glee as she handed him a package.

Ripping off the paper, he found something bright red and brown. “What’s this, then?”

“Your apron!” Vick grabbed it from him and shook it out. It was an apron, brown with colorful circles on the top and red and white striped straps.

“It's got ruffles, Vick!” he protested.

“It’s a gingerbread man one! Those are your candy cane ties!” Vick insisted.

“It’s got ruffles!” he protested again. Glancing over at Charlie, David saw that his son’s apron was a comparatively manly blue with whales and dolphins. “Why can’t I have one like that?”

“Because we almost _exploded_ ,” Vicky whispered harshly. “Now put it on.”

David sighed but did as she said, though Vick had to help with the straps. He did owe it to her, after everything that had happened. “There. You’re a very handsome gingerbread man,” Vick declared, patting his shoulders. “Isn’t he a handsome gingerbread man?”

“Yeah!” both kids cheered.

“Alright,” David knew when he was outvoted. “So what’re we doing?”

“Making stained glass biscuits!” Ella declared happily.

“And what should I do?”

“Go over there and use the mortar and pestle to crush up the boiled sweets,” Vicky pointed at the other side of the counter.

“The what and what?” he asked, eyeing the counter. At least he knew what boiled sweets were.

“Ella, be a love and show your daddy what to do?”

Thankfully the job wasn’t hard, and confusing names aside, all David had to do was take each colour boiled sweet and grind it up a bit -- in chunks, not completely into powder -- before dumping it into a little bowl -- ramekin, Ella informed him.

As he did this, he watched Vick and the kids mix up the other ingredients. He was almost finished when they had completed their dough, and they put the bowl in the fridge. Then Vick set the timer and started the dishes while the kids wrote their letters to Santa. David tried to help clean, but was sent over to the kids with a firm jerk of her chin.

When the timer went off, Vick pulled the dough back out of the fridge and set it again. David didn’t see the point of refrigerating the dough just to let it warm up again, but then he hadn’t understood why he was destroying sweeties earlier either. Much of baking, he suspected, was mysterious.

Finally, the second timer went off, just as the kids were finishing the elaborate drawings on their letters. They reconvened at the counter, where David was shanghaied into rolling out the dough with a pin. He had to stop repeatedly so that Charlie could measure the thickness, until finally he pronounced it “just right.” Somehow, this process got more flour on the lot of them than all the previous steps combined.

Next, while David watched, The kids used a pair of snowflake cutters to cut out the biscuits. After they did each one, Vick would put it on a tray and then use a smaller snowflake cutter on the middle.

Once Vick had the first tray ready, she handed it to David. “Now, don’t mix the colours, but sprinkle a pinch in the middle of each snowflake.”

“A pinch?”

“God, David! It’s cooking, not brain surgery! Just pinch it with your fingers!”

“Sorry,” David quickly picked up the first bowl -- yellow -- and pinched some of the crushed sweets. Then, under Vicky’s watchful eye, he sprinkled it into the hole of the first biscuit.

“Good,” she said when he was done. “Do the rest just like that.”

He quickly got the hang of it, and had finished the entire tray by the time Vick brought him the second one. The third was only half-full of snowflakes for him, the other half being the wee pieces Vick was making.

“Just sprinkle a little bit on top of those,” she explained. “Not too much so it boils over the sides, but enough to use the last of the sweets.”

David tried to do as instructed, and even went back and topped off a large green one that looked a little sparse, rather than overloading one of the wee ones.

Finally, they were finished, and the first tray was put in the oven. David had been convinced to join the kids with his nose against the glass to watch the first batch melt, as Vick cleaned yet again.

And, he had to admit, it was kind of fun to see the boiled sweets melt and the dough rise. The timer forced them out of Vick’s way, and they were banished to the telly while she put in the next tray and finished cleaning.

Finally, the biscuits were cool enough for handling, and David was tasked with carefully stabbing a hole in the top of each one. Then Charlie and Ella threaded ribbons through them, ready to be hung on the tree.

Now, seeing them come together, David realized that he had seen these on the tree in years past, but always assumed they were normal ornaments. He’d never thought of ornaments as being something edible before, or associated it with the biscuits Vick and the kids made each year.

As the kids hung the biscuit ornaments on the tree, Vick plopped down on the couch beside David and handed him a mug of spiced cider and a plate of the more familiar smaller snowflakes. One or two did look a little drowned in the melted sweeties, but overall he thought he had done an acceptable job.

“Sorry,” he said, quiet enough that the kids couldn’t hear.

“For what?” Vick sounded genuinely confused.

“For missing this,” David waved at the room with a half-eaten biscuit. “All of it.”

Vick slid a little closer and rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re here now,” she said, forgiving him as she had so many times before. “This year, that’s enough.”

And, looking around the room at his family, David had to agree.

**Author's Note:**

> [Recipe and time-lapse video of the process](https://www.thespruceeats.com/christmas-stained-glass-cookie-recipe-4149581), if you're interested.


End file.
